Hi all my name is Kelly and I first was introduced to a wonderful Pit named Lucy 10 years ago when my daughter adopted her. I babysat my grandpuppy while my daughter worked and fell in love day 1. Lucy still begs and cries to come to grammas and we will have her for a couple weeks at a time...My dog Chloe a 10 year old Border Collie and Luce are best friends and lately Chloe seems sad when Lucys not around. in fact she recently learned how to open the latch on the kitchen window and let herself out while we're at work lol This started with the arrival of a new puppy next door...

Anyway we have been considering another pup for awhile and recently a friend of mine had a litter of pitty's. She owns both mom and pop so I know this little girl comes from parents with great temperaments...We've named her Skye and she will be arriving the end of May. Its been awhile since I've had a pit puppy in the house so I'm sure I will turn to this forum often. Right now my dilemma is in getting her here. She was in Cali when she was born and I planned on driving down to get her, but recently she made the cross country trip by car to NY with mom, pop and siblings so I will be needing to fly her out here. I've checked into a couple airlines and we have a nice wire crate for her to grow into after she arrives but am wondering what size and brand to get her for the airplane. She will be 11 weeks old and traveling alone in the cargo area. Also which airlines anybody might recommend I use?

More about me? I love the simple life and somewhat of a homebody. My husband and I live on almost 2 1/2 fenced acres so there will be plenty of space for Skye to run and play. We have a vegetable garden, and fruit trees so I can in the summer, I like to knit and spend time with my grandkids and their 2 dogs, my husband recently got his pilots license and bought a Cessna; hopefully this puppy will like short flights lol. I work for a library system, love to read and so lately I'm reading How to raise the perfect dog by Cesar Milan. Right now I am just super anxious to get our new addition home. Oh and I almost forgot we do own a cat Umma who is mostly an outside cat but loves to come in daily to hang out awhile, play with Chloe usually just seeking a little human touch :)

Hi Kelly! Welcome to the board Could your husband pick up the new pup in his Cessna? Or would there be too many stops involved to get from NY to where you are?

I've never flown a dog before (when I was younger my parents had our family dog flown to Germany-my Dad was in the military, but I had no part of it) but there are a couple members here who have. Also, there is an airline specifically for this...but they only fly to certain places. A member here-Red-had a foster dog flown to his owner (who is also a member here, can't think of his screen name, but his real name in Vin) through this airline. Maybe you could contact Red and see if she has any info she could share.

I would say the majority of the members here do not like Cesar Millan. When I first came to the board I was surprised about that...but then when I read why, it made sense and my thoughts/ideas on dog training started to change...hopefully yours will too.

Are you aware that Pit Bull type dogs can be aggressive towards other dogs/animals? Even though it sounds like Lucy was not...your new pup could be. Please don't be fooled into thinking you'll prevent it by raising her right. You can do everything the right way, and have her still be DA or AA (dog aggressive, animal aggressive). It isn't a fault, it's pretty typical of the breed. You'll just have to adjust your lifestyle to crate and rotate...never leaving the two dogs alone unsupervised. Lots of members here live this way-myself included. For my home it isn't necessarily a crate that keeps our guys separated. For us it's mostly bedrooms. When we're not home our girl Bailey goes in the master bedroom, our boy Trooper gets the majority of the house and our two cats go in their room. When we are home we use baby gates to separate the dogs.

Hopefully some others will see your intro and post some better suggested books for you. (our intro section have been getting bombarded with spam-it's the only place they can spam us)